Was it 39 minutes of well-played, no-nonsense college hoops that you craved in the second week of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament after two Sweet 16 nights of mostly blowouts?

Well, they were served to you on a platter from Boston Saturday night by Big East Conference powerhouses Pittsburgh and Villanova – with a frantic, gut-twisting and exhilarating final minute provided as a scrumptious dessert in the second of the day’s two regional finals.

We can only hope the national championship game played in Detroit a week from Monday night approaches the level of competitiveness and nerve-wracking final-minutes tension that the Panthers and Wildcats gave us.

Remember Tyus Edney’s nearly full-court dash with the basketball and layup at the buzzer in 1995 that gave UCLA a stunning one-point victory over Missouri and kept the Bruins on the path to a national title?

Fourteen years from now, should Villanova go on to become the team cutting down the nets on April 6 in Detroit, we all may have watched the replay of Scottie Reynolds’ game-winning layup with .5 seconds to go Saturday night against Pittsburgh as often as we’ve watched Edney’s 4.8 seconds of majesty.

Villanova’s 78-76 East Regional final victory over Pittsburgh softened the impact the game played earlier in Arizona will have on the collective memory of college basketball followers.

But the Connecticut path to Detroit in the West final in Glendale provided much more arduous than many – myself included – suspected when the tournament pairings were unveiled two weeks ago this evening.

The Huskies, who came into the season as the consensus second-best team in the country (after the near-unanimous choice to win the crown, North Carolina) pounded Chattanooga and Texas A&M in the tourney’s first two rounds.

But they needed contributions from multiple sources to eventually hold off, 82-75, a Missouri squad Saturday that was coming off a 16-16 performance a year ago and was projected by some to finish in the second half of the Big 12 standings.

They gave the region’s No.2 seed Memphis a figurative “beat down” of sorts Thursday night, building a 24-point edge early in the second half before laying 102 points on a John Calipari-

coached club that was unbeaten in the ’09 portion of the 2008-09 season.

Those same tactics might have led the Tigers to an even more resounding upset Saturday against a team with an NBA-like frontcourt (7-foot-3, 6-9 and 6-7) of the Huskies weren’t in possession of a pretty nifty reserve freshman point guard.

Of course that player, Kemba Walker, wasn’t exactly “just a reserve.”

The graduate of Rice High in Manhattan, N.Y., was a 2008 McDonald’s All-America and considered just behind Brandon Jennings (the former Dominguez High standout who played his final two seasons at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and is now playing professionally in Italy) at his position nationally.

Walker’s skill with a basketball in his hands was a given well before he relocated from New York City to Storrs, Conn.

But on Saturday his poise and ability to make sound decisions with the ball in his hands was proven vastly superior to senior teammates – and starters – A.J. Price and Craig Austrie.

While the latter two were often erratic against the Tigers’ defense, Walker attacked the pressure – without a trace of carelessness – and got into the lane with ease and either scored (he had a game- and career-high 23 points) or set up teammates (with five assists) for high-percentage shots.

Guard play also proved the difference in the game in Boston.

Reynolds’ Shot of the Tournament (so far) may have won the game.

The consistent ability of Reynolds and fellow backcourt players Reggie Redding and Corey Fisher to not only beat Pitt defenders off the dribble but to also make pretty good decisions – passing or shooting – for most of 40 minutes put their team in position to win the game.

Let’s hope that today’s games played in Indianapolis (Louisville vs. Michigan State) and Memphis (North Carolina vs. Oklahoma) prove just as dandy as Saturday’s finals did.

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